cageymaru

Fully [H]
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
Messages
22,054
Google has admitted in a letter to Congress that it still allows apps to data mine Gmail accounts, read emails, and share user data freely with others by using tools provided by Google. These tools allow 3rd party companies to access data about purchases, travel, family and friendship interactions. Employees at the app companies regularly read emails from Gmail accounts to create better software algorithms that ultimately choose better targeted ads.

"'Developers may share data with third parties so long as they are transparent with the users about how they are using the data,' Susan Molinari, the company's vice president for public policy and government affairs for the Americas, wrote in the letter." Google already buys credit card data and location matches consumers to local purchases.

Some of those apps share email data with partners, who use it to understand the behavior of users and improve their ability to target ads to them. When users sign up to Earny, a tool that compares receipts in inboxes to prices across the web, their inboxes are also scanned by the computers of a different company, Return Path Inc., which collects data for marketers.

Google's statement to Congress suggests that the company is fine with arrangements like these, as long as Earny tells users what is happening with their data. Return Path and Earny have both said they give users clear notice about the email monitoring. Earny's privacy policy states that Return Path would "have access to your information and will be permitted to use that information according to their own privacy policy."
 
This is problematic.

I have been aware of the fact that the content of my emails was automatically and anonymously scanned for keywords to present me with ads, and I had been unhappy with this, but kind of come to terms with it.

This takes things to a whole new level.

It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...
 
oh gosh. time to cap this before it gets even more out of hand. free services in exchange for data mining i think is confirmed at this point as destructive business model. Pay $20 a year for that gmail/google services suite. probably too late with how much influence these guys got though. need a modern trust-buster before these giant companies go into full east india trading company status. i have no where to store a file anymore...
 
This is problematic.

I have been aware of the fact that the content of my emails was automatically and anonymously scanned for keywords to present me with ads, and I had been unhappy with this, but kind of come to terms with it.

This takes things to a whole new level.

It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...
Yes, it is and always was and always will be time to have your own domain/mailserver. Heard Google plans to launch some great amp'd-up hosting plans. :eek:
 
"'Developers may share data with third parties so long as they are transparent with the users about how they are using the data,' Susan Molinari, the company's vice president for public policy and government affairs for the Americas, wrote in the letter." Google already buys credit card data and location matches consumers to local purchases.

They seem to be mixing two different issues in this article. One of them is gmail users giving full access to their account to third parties, the other is credit card companies selling their costumers private information to google. The first one required user giving their permission to the third party, so imo is more of a problem between the user and the third party company. The second one is outside of user control, and definitely a case of the problem being at the credit card company and google end.
 
There is nothing private about our lives anymore unless one doesn't own any kind of smart device.
 
This is disgusting, what gives google the right to scan individuals private emails ??
 
If you run your e-mail server out from a residental IP address you'll probably find that you are blocked either by receiving e-mail servers or blocked port 25 by your ISP.

My Dynamic DNS service has a feature where you can re-route these ports to a different port, so they can bypass this. I can even run a webserver on port 80 if I want :p
 
Yes, it is and always was and always will be time to have your own domain/mailserver. Heard Google plans to launch some great amp'd-up hosting plans. :eek:

Question is, I'm fairly certain I can trust thunderbird for mail on my desktop, but what about my phone? If I use an email app that connects to an IMAP server, is there still someone somewhere reading my mail?
 
I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter at this point because you're only half of the communicating party. Unless you can convince all your friends and all their friends and all the companies you do business with to use private encrypted email, it's just as easy to scoop up everything from any point in the chain.

That being said, I like protonmail.com and I've heard tutanota.com is good too.
 
They seem to be mixing two different issues in this article. One of them is gmail users giving full access to their account to third parties, the other is credit card companies selling their costumers private information to google. The first one required user giving their permission to the third party, so imo is more of a problem between the user and the third party company. The second one is outside of user control, and definitely a case of the problem being at the credit card company and google end.
I usually try to link older articles about similar issues together. Thus the mention of the older Mastercard article. It was equally as disturbing.
 
I think they need to update their slogan to "First, do evil. Then do more evil."

It very much depends on their interpretation of what evil is as this can be very subjective and is in the eye of the beholder. Lately they've been seeing free speech and democracy as evil so it's been getting banned ;-).
 
Like I said when Yahoo admitted data mining emails, At least Yahoo admits it, others are surely doing it.

IIRC, when the Yahoo policy became a news article, Google was quick to state that they no longer mine emails even though they used to. Seems that statement might not have been totally accurate.
 
It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

I created an an Office 365 account in Azure and registered it all to my own domain name. May not be as secure as running my own email server, but I trust it more than gmail at this point. At the very least, I'm fairly confident MS isn't scanning and/or profiting off the contents of those messages. Down side, it's not free.
 
You had to figure they're doing this. Look at most of their products / systems, they're free for a reason and all revolve around collecting data. It's downright brilliant in a very creepy way...

- Android --> Collect phone logs, text messaging, images, videos, location history, etc.

- Chrome Browser --> Collect all of the locations for sites a user visits without needing to use cookies to try and link users.

- Calendar / Mail / Contacts --> Get all relational links between users. Pull information from their calendar and email.

- Voice / Messaging / Voicemail --> Transcribe all calls / voicemails into meta data.

- Home / OK Google --> Active listening devices that can transcribe on the fly. You may not think these are recording, but they are transcribing with a hot mic. It's how your phone knows what song is playing without being prompted. It might not be sending the recording back, but it's likely setting meta data back.
 
I don't even have a Gmail account but link my Outlook email in the app on my Android phone. I was surprised when I opened up the never-used calendar app ony phone and it has all of the ETA dates of packages I'm expecting, date set for my flights, etc. I had no idea the Google calendar app was scanning even those emails, I don't recall giving it permission to specifically. I'm sure it's in the Android ula or something...
 
Makes me glad I never left the dark ages with my hotmail account. I can only imagine it's just a few steps behind Google though with regard to privacy.
 
No one should be surprised about this. This is google, I stopped using gmail for anything important around 2010. The only thing I need to stop using is chrome, but I like youtube and the tab syncing. Does anyone have a suggestion on browsers with tab syncing?

I also find it absolutely stupid that people pay for google home and amazon alexa. You are paying for them to record and advertise you to every one who pays them money. Google, Facebook, Amazon do not take privacy seriously at all, they are trying to sell YOU.
 
Unless you can convince all your friends and all their friends and all the companies you do business with to use private encrypted email, it's just as easy to scoop up everything from any point in the chain.

It doesn't matter anymore. Privacy is dead. There's literally nothing anyone can do anymore except go completely off the grid. Dumb phone? Doesn't matter, phone provider can still get all your info. Email? Like darckhart said, they can just get what you say and send on the receivers end.

Only thing you might be able to protect is your internet if you use a VPN (who is really trustworthy though?) and something like TOR to encrypt everything (but it can be cracked now?).

So yeah, as much as this sucks, what can we really do about any of it?
 
This is problematic.

I have been aware of the fact that the content of my emails was automatically and anonymously scanned for keywords to present me with ads, and I had been unhappy with this, but kind of come to terms with it.

This takes things to a whole new level.

It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...
This is problematic.

I have been aware of the fact that the content of my emails was automatically and anonymously scanned for keywords to present me with ads, and I had been unhappy with this, but kind of come to terms with it.

This takes things to a whole new level.

It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...
I've always read its not worth the headache of hosting your own email server. However, crap like this makes me wonder if it is. I've read about a few other hosted email services that claim to keep your data private. Not sure how trusted they might be.
 
I just assumed that Google data mines everything that it touches, which is why I don't use Gmail or Chrome or login to YouTube.
 
It's sad to see how much has changed in 15 years. Google, Microsoft and other big players constantly pushing us deeper and deeper into the pit, exploiting us and taking advantage of people's ignorance (Google home, Alexa) A lot of people have no idea what Google is doing and how it works, my parents for sure don't and a lot of people at my own age had no idea about what Alexa or Google home does to their privacy. I find it crazy how our privacy has disappeared the last decade, from companies reading our emails to tracking us, scanning our words wherever we go. My wife has a pixel 2 and it scans what we talk about and send her ads about it the day after.. It's just a downwards spiral and these companies need to be dealt with and split up for the sake of humanity.
 
This is problematic.

I have been aware of the fact that the content of my emails was automatically and anonymously scanned for keywords to present me with ads, and I had been unhappy with this, but kind of come to terms with it.

This takes things to a whole new level.

It might be time to switch email providers.

What alternatives are there out there now? I don't want to use the email provided by my ISP, as I don't trust them either, and who knows how long I'll go without switching ISP's. I'd rather not change email addresses all the time.

Does it make sense to pull a Hillary, buy my own domain, spin up my own IMAP server and DIY with dynamic DNS and port forwarding? God, I thought we were beyond having to do this kind of nonsense...

Most alternatives are pretty awful and just as bad as google. The three good alternatives that are popular are posteo, protonmail and tutanota. The big issue I have with these is trying to give your email address over the phone, I have a name that everyone gets the spelling wrong so I just couldnt consider trying to get someone to get tutanota or posteo.de right first go. Gmail is just so easy and common that no one gets it wrong.

Also googles antispam is top class so its a bit of a tradeoff there no matter what you use.

Ive considered swapping over to my protonmail account a few times over the years but its just so much effort trying to make sure everyone updates their address book that I just give up. I think im stuck with google for quite some time.
 
This is why you limit criminal activities, or anything you do not want to be caught at, in person, at a park, near a white noise source, like a fountain.

Crime bosses got this down long ago; of course, now you don't actually know what law you might be violating, but there's at least one.
 
Back
Top